Dr. Hassan Diab, the Canadian sociology professor unjustly extradited from Canada to France in November 2014, continues to languish in pretrial detention in France. He is confined to a prison cell for 22 hours a day, deprived of his freedom and torn from his family and home in Canada.

In the past year, Hassan has been ordered released on bail FOUR TIMES by two different French judges. The French investigative judge found that there is “consistent evidence” that Hassan is innocent of involvement in the bombing outside a Paris Synagogue in 1980. However, each time the prosecutor appealed, and the court of appeal judges blocked Hassan’s release on bail.

We urge you to sign our new Parliamentary petition calling upon the Government of Canada to work towards the immediate granting of bail to Hassan Diab and securing his return to his family and home in Canada.

William Bourdon, Hassan’s lawyer in France remarked: “Hassan Diab’s situation is unprecedented. After 36 years and since no one else was indicted, the court of appeal is clinging to Hassan Diab. He is detained because of the judges’ fear to be accused of laxity in the context of today’s fight against terrorism in France. Such a situation would be inconceivable in an ordinary law situation.”

Please share the Parliamentary petition with your family, friends, and social media, so we can collect the greatest number of signatures possible before the petition closes on July 11.

Thank you.

2. BCCLA-Sponsored Event in Vancouver, April 5n

“Why is a Canadian Professor still in a French jail? What can we do about it?”

After six years of imprisonment and house arrest in Canada, Dr. Hassan Diab was extradited to France in November 2014. Because of France’s documented history of using torture evidence in anti-terrorism investigations and trials, human rights and civil liberties groups – including the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) – opposed the unconditional extradition given concerns that if delivered to France, Dr. Diab – a Canadian citizen – may face trial based on evidence potentially derived from torture.

The Canadian judge who extradited Hassan Diab described the French case as “weak” and concluded that a conviction was unlikely if Hassan were tried in a Canadian court. France’s new anti-terrorism laws permit courts to rely on secret “intelligence,” whose contents or sources have never been disclosed to Hassan.

Don Bayne, a leading criminal defence lawyer, said Dr. Diab, a Muslim Canadian, is Canada’s Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew wrongly accused during a strongly anti-Semitic time.

We are calling on the Government of Canada to raise Dr. Diab’s case with the French authorities. We have the gravest concern that this case represents a profound miscarriage of justice and the time to act is long overdue.

3. Film and Discussion at Cinema Academica, University of Ottawa, April 8